2024s Black Metal Cult was a perfect slab of French Black Metal from Meyhnach’s Mütiilation, and it was my first time covering one of the long-standing powerhouses of French Black Metal. Pandemonium of Egregores is the more melodic follow-up to that church-burning masterpiece, and it’s a certified crusher. Five tracks in 32:05 is just long […]

Well, that didn’t take long for 2026 to drop an early contender for an album that will be on my 2026 year-end list! Upiór (a Polish word meaning ‘Revenant’) is a newish project formed by Tomasz “Josh” Jaskuła, based out of France, and he has some fairly notable folks helping out, including Ben B on […]

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‘Uhhh huh huh. Hey, baby. I heard you like The Black Dahlia Murder’. I have smoothly pressed “Power” on the remote on my living room 10-disc CD changer, which slides out smoothly as I casually drop the new Carrion Vael album, Slay Utterly, into the not-at-all-too-large or gaudy apparatus. It closes instantly because it’s the […]

Much like that weird week between Christmas and New Year’s where time doesn’t exist, there’s a similar fugue in the new year when it comes to reviewing albums at the end of the year/start of the year. We have plenty of 2026 releases to cover, but the tail end of 2025 still saw plenty of […]

After dropping not one, but two albums in 2024, including Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones, Sweden’s Carnal Savagery elevated their status in the Swedish death metal ranks from being merely productive and OK, to a solid second-tier act. Especially as the increased Autopsy stench was far more prevalent on the last few efforts amid the […]

It’s safe to say that I’ve never heard of Italy’s Dawn of a Dark Age until now. Ver Sacrum mixes two genres that I love: Black Metal and Jazz. Vittorio Sabelli is an ubër talented mofo, and it’s his warm-as-butter Clarinet that elevates this album to Avantgarde status. Ver Sacrum marks nine albums since 2014, […]

You are familiar with the expectations vs. reality memes, right? Here’s one for you: Expectations: Promos sheet that teased brutal death metal like Suffocation and Immolation, with added cinematic atmospheres, keyboards, and tales of brutal torture and serial killers, or specifically ‘a blood-soaked manifesto of riffs, madness, and horror, dragging the listener into a world […]

Love it or hate it, Deathcore is here to stay, folks. You can not like that fact, but accepting it will make it far less frustrating for you. I make no bones about loving the genre and the city of sin, Las Vegas, which sports a nifty deathcore band, Ov Sulfur. In 2021, they released […]

Guttural Slug is a brutal slam death metal band hailing from Denmark. With three full-length albums under their belt and having not released anything since their last album, Plague of Filth, in 2019, here comes the Ulcers in the Flesh of Thought EP. Much has transpired since the last album. Guitarist Mikkel Sørensen hired a […]

It’s been 10 years since I last heard the Chicago Black metal act Withering Soul. It was 2015’s Adverse Portrait, where the band delivered a far more aggressive and improved take on symphonic black metal, and dropped some of the more gothic/November’s Doom influences from the 2011 debut, No Closure. Now, I have not heard […]

Today we’re going to Sweden. It’s a free trip; all you have to do is read this review. That’s easy enough, right? I’m not asking for anything too crazy, just two minutes of your precious time. I picked Havamal with the hope that I would get a Falkenbach type of thing, because Falkenbach has a […]

There was some fine symphonic/melodic black metal towards the end of 2025 (Argesk, Mystic Circle, Maahes, Achathras, Rotting Demise, Gjallarhorn’s Wrath, etc), and as 2026 starts, there is still a trickle of excellent releases in the style that need your attention from 2025, like WitcherR‘s Öröklét or this effort from Haimad. A few years ago, […]

Back in 2023, I reviewed Dead and Dripping’s Blackened Cerebral Rifts, and I was pretty rough on it. I didn’t like it/ didn’t get it, what-fucking-ever. Anyway, today I went back to it before listening to Nefarious Scintillations, and goddammit, I started to like it. I blame my fellow scribes for my newfound love for Deathcore. They all […]

Back in 2022, I reviewed the solid third album, Lélekharang, from the Hungarian duo, WitcheR (not based on the Andrzej Sapkowski books or Henry Cavill show). It was a very well done style of Summoning-ish styled atmospheric black metal, focusing on more doomy, and moody pacing, complete with programmed drums and tinny guitars, just like […]

I could just address the elephant in the room and talk about the artwork for Subcutaneous Tomb, and if that’s what happens, then it happens. That’s the most important part, right? Not how the album sounds, but whether or not it resembles Gorguts’ eponymous debut, Considered Dead, and the artwork for that album… That’s silly. […]

I was pretty darn upset when Malignant Altar called it quits. I reviewed their Realms of Exquisite Morbidity debut album. So awesome. Memorable. Doomy, brutal and dark death metal. Well, slap me in the face and say stop all that cryin’, because Terror Corpse contains former Malignant Altar members. That’s right, folks. Hailing from Houston, […]

I didn’t know that I needed Decrepit Altar in my life… until now. I love the cavernous, murky, and downright swampy vibes that these Croatian death/doom dealers are spewing out into the unsuspecting world. Egregious Defilement is their brand spanking first EP, and let me tell you what: IT’S FUCKING GREAT! I probably didn’t need […]

Mausoleum Gate is a pleasant Finnish surprise I recently came across. They have two prior albums and an EP. Space, Rituals and Magick continues their brand of metal, which combines the very early metal sounds from the 70s and early 80s. Think bands like Black Sabbath/Ozzy, Angelwitch, Mercyful Fate and Iron Maiden. Hell, even The […]

Here is salvo number 5 from Chicago’s Blood of the Wolf (with members of Withering Soul and Kommandant), and like 2022’s IV: The Declaration of War Eternal, and 2018’s II: Campaign of Extermination before it (I missed the EP III: Blood Legend), it’s a ripper of Midwest Blackened/death/war metal. At 31 minutes, Indomitable does not fuck […]

I recently got to see Los Angeles’ Lamp of Murmur with Dödsrit and the mighty Blackbraid. It was my first exposure to their brand of Black Metal craziness, and I wasn’t disappointed, not only are they fun to listen to, but they’re insane live. The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy is their 4th full-length after a slew […]

Phobocosm, hailing from Montréal, Quebec, have been slinging their brand of darkness since around 2008, but did not pop onto the scene with a release until their debut album, Deprived, in 2014. All of their releases have been on Matt Calvert’s awesome Dark Descent Records. Gateway is the band’s fourth studio album, and we get […]

2025 has seen some excellent symphonic black metal, especially later on in the year, with releases from Old Machines, Gjallahorn’s Wrath, Maahes, Carach Angren, Argesk, Mystic Circle, Rotting Demise, Labyrinthus Stellarum, Mourniaty, Achathras, Execrari, Deconstruction Sequence, Haimad, and Withering Soul.  Add the third album from the Netherlands’ one-man (J.M.K.P) act, The Gloomy Radiance of the Sun. This […]

The internet told me Orm (‘serpent’) was an epic/atmospheric black metal band from Denmark that sang about Norse Mythology. Sign me up! The internet also told me they are/were known for sprawling 25-minute songs, but apparently they returned to the shorter songs of their 2017 self-titled debut on Guld, their 4th album. So how do […]

Garde is an interesting ‘new’ band, even though they formed 25 years ago, and Harbinger of Revenge and War is their only release. So you know they took a really, really long time to get this sucker out to us. Vocals are done by Dan Capp, the newest Solstice (UK) singer. He’s been with them […]